from the the-definition-of-insanity dept

For a group that claims it's focused on "educating" people, the recording industry seems amazingly thickheaded in learning lessons itself. Just last week the IFPI succeeded in having an Israeli court demand that Israeli ISPs block bittorrent search site HttpShare. As we noted in that post, this would likely act as tremendous advertising for HttpShare -- and, indeed, that's exactly what has happened. The site claims that traffic has jumped, even requiring the site owners to upgrade the hardware hosting the site -- all thanks to a little "IFPI Advertising."

What's most stunning, however, is that the IFPI didn't realize this would happen. After all, it's happened again and again and again. In fact, just a month ago, a similar action in Denmark over the Pirate Bay greatly increased traffic to the site. Hell, the Pirate Bay first came to international attention (beyond a much smaller niche group of users) after the IFPI pressured gov't officials to take the site down. Of course, rather than recognize this, the IFPI and the RIAA (and the MPAA at times as well) always claim that each of these "shut downs" is a "significant blow" against piracy. Apparently, they never consider what happens next. Makes you think that the execs and lawyers at the recording industry probably aren't very good chess players.

from the down-goes-another-one dept

The entertainment industry really has a way about convincing judges and politicians that something really awful is going on with bittorrent search engines -- despite the fact that they have yet to present any evidence that any of them are illegal. Since they're search engines, they are not hosting any infringing content, and there are plenty of legitimate uses of these systems, as can be seen by the fact that Trent Reznor just used various torrent sites to help promote his latest album (which appears to be doing quite well). If there are problems with particular content, the answer isn't to blame the site, but to go after those responsible for offering up the infringing content itself. Yet, through various scare tactics, the entertainment industry convinces judges and politicians that it's the search engines' fault. The latest is in Israel, where the IFPI has convinced a judge to order the country's largest ISPs to block a torrent site named Httpshare. This doesn't appear to fit with the laws in Israel at all, which has some wondering why the judge would make such an order. Of course, the end result will likely backfire on the IFPI. Remember, it was just a few weeks ago that a Danish court similarly ordered ISPs to block Pirate Bay. The end result was just to generate a lot more attention for Pirate Bay increasing traffic greatly from Denmark. The same thing is likely to now happen in Israel with Httpshare, a site I'd never heard about. There will be rather easy workarounds for users who want to get there, and thanks to the IFPI putting it in the headlines, chances are many more people will go check it out.